Great week, now back to chores

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving week with our grandchildren and our kids.  Jason and Joanne flew in and rented an awesome cabin for our T-day dinner and gathering.  Lots of room to spread out, do puzzles, dominos, visit, and of course, eat.  We were catered to by Jason who did essentially all the cooking with some help from the grandkids.  Joanne made a fantastic pie, Jan and Faith made a delicious pecan bar, and Christian helped wherever he could.  

Jason, the chef, hard at work

It was a smallish gathering for the big day, but very nice nonetheless.

Kelly, Christian, Joanne, Jason, Faith, and Jan

We had to say good bye to Jason and Joanne on Friday as they went back to tackle moving into their new house.  We had a couple more days before the grandkids had to go home.

Three generations, Kelly, Faith, and Jan

It was a whirlwind but wonderful times were had by all.  Now Jan and I are getting back to normal, so that means we have to tackle our floor.  I spent some time to put in a ton more screws, we don't want any squeaks or loose floors, because as I said before, this 3rd replacement is the LAST floor!

Lots more screws

Then Jan tackled floor leveler to smooth things for our final floor.

Jan applying floor leveler

Doing a great job!

So we are still in Texas, and plan to do our floor here.  Pictures and story will follow:-)

A quick update and Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

It worked out delaying our journey to Santa Fe, the reported 13 degrees ended up being 10, and I don't know about you, that is just too cold.  Even so we experienced 24 degrees for what ended up being only 2 nights in Santa Fe.  We got 2 things done that we wanted to, Jan got her hair cut and we had dinner at The Pantry, one of our favorites.

Since then, we have driven to Dallas, stopped long enough to pick up the grandkids, and now are planning on a nice Thanksgiving get together here.

Christian and Faith with Grandma Jan

We had one unfortunate event on our drive.  Our poor windshield already has had 3 repairs and one small crack on the right side that hasn't moved in months, but a car went around us somewhere in Texas and we heard a bang, and our windshield cracked and cracked, and continued to crack over each bump.  It is truly a mess right now.  We hope we can nurse it into Florida and get it repaired there.  Keep your fingers crossed.

A little hard to see

So as we make our way east, we want to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving!  We sure have a lot to be thankful for, and hope you do to.

Say what! 13 degrees?

A quick update.  We had a very nice time in Taos with Karen and Tom.  Their house turned out very nice.  We enjoyed many delicious meals and had a great time visiting.  As for mother nature, not so much.  Winter is roaring in this year, the locals in NM and CO are celebrating as they need snow and a ton of it.  But for us, not really.  Snow, wind, and cold were our companions.  I wasn't real happy about it, and with the lower temps, in the low 30's, our auxiliary air pump plagued us yet again by running on and off every couple minutes.

Jan even made snowmen showing my displeasure:-)

It's the oddest thing, we thought we had solved all our air leak issues, but whenever the temp goes down below 30 or so, the air pump cycles and cycles driving us crazy!  So I got to thinking, yeah, I know, a bad thing, but the only thing I could come up with was the air fitting from the air pump to the small leveling tank that was completely blocked this spring. We had it looked at while replacing our air bags.  The tech, instead of replacing the part, drilled it out to clear the obstruction.  So I thought maybe that was the problem, he had damaged it somehow, so when Tom offered to crawl under and replace the fitting I jumped on it.  And for the rest of our time in Taos, all was well.

After the snow melted

So we moved down to Albuquerque and got situated in the campground there, Bernalillo actually, and we have been enjoying the warmer temps.  We had numerous visits with Jan's mom, ran several errands, ate out a bunch, got our fix at Costco, etc.  Karen and Tom came down from Taos on their way to Florida, so we were able to get Viv out for her belated 96th birthday!

Viv, the birthday girl

Another thing we wanted to do was to visit several flooring stores to see if we could figure out what we are going to install on our renovated floor.  We did make a decision and ordered the material, more on this later.

So even with the comparably warmer weather, it is still nippy, and the other night the temps went below freezing and what happened, the stinking air pump began cycling at 0230am!  On, off, on, off!  Now when this happens, the only way to stop it is to go outside, open up the DC electrical compartment and pull a fuse out to disable it.  I don't know about you, but to get up in the middle of the night, in the cold, to go outside with a flashlight and do this doesn't exactly please me.  So I decided to install a switch inside, yes, I should have done this before, but each time we replaced a leaking part I thought we had fixed it.  So our new procedure is this, when we think the temp will be below freezing, and hope that's not too often in the scope of things, we will extend the jacks and turn off the air pump, and hopefully sleep blissfully through the night.

Our new switch

Speaking of cold temps.  We were planning to move on Monday up to Santa Fe for a few days before we start heading east, and have been watching the weather closely.  I should explain the elevation differences out here; Taos 6969', Santa Fe 7199', Bernalillo 5052', and Karen and Tom's house 7665'.  Big differences in temps.  Anyway, we have been watching a storm system expected in Sunday evening and into Monday that is supposed to bring snow and much colder temps, in fact, as low as 13df in Santa Fe Monday night as opposed to 24df here in Bernalillo, so we have decided to extend our stay one day here and move up to Santa Fe Tuesday when they expect much balmier temps of 20df:-)  At these kind of temps the difference of 10df is huge!  Hah, the other thing we keep asking ourselves is why the hell are we here in temps like this????  

Bidding a sad farewell to Colorado

Our last week went quickly, and we tried to stuff a lot into it.  We weren't able to hike as the trails we were interested in were covered in snow:-)  But we still got in some sightseeing, some lunches, a lot of walking around town, and several errands before we left Durango.  

We were also lucky to get in a few pleasant cocktail hours with the cool, cool weather moving in.

Our site and view at cocktail hour

We got some sushi takeout and went up to the overlook above Durango and Hermosa the next town north, and enjoyed our picnic and a gorgeous view with warm enough weather to take a little hike after we ate.

Quite a spot for our picnic!

Then we drove up to Silverton knowing it was our last time this year.  We've never been here this late in the season and were surprised to find out that almost the entire town was already closed down and on the Saturday we went, we happened to coincide with the last train of the season.  Finding that out, we were very surprised the stores and restaurants didn't stay open for it.  After a very dismal lunch at one of the only places to eat, we ventured up the Million Dollar Highway a few miles to enjoy the scenery.

A gorgeous day!

Fantastic!

We went to Andrew's Lake for our last coffee break, and after decided to ride over to Little Molas Lake.  We were all alone, and the views were perfect.

Little Molas Lake

We walked down to the lake and were surprised to see the water roiling right where a small stream fed in.  On further investigation we found out it was a bunch of native Brook trout possibly spawning in the incoming flow.

The water was churning

Lots of Brookies

So now we are in Taos visiting Jan's sister Karen and Tom, and waiting for the rain/snow storm that is supposed to blast in tonight bringing colder weather, maybe as low as 20df!

And look what we woke up to!

We definitely did not sign up for this!